By Carlos Polo | In March 2004, Steven Mosher enlisted me to work full-time for the Population Research Institute. He gave me the mission to encourage, empower, organize, and train pro-life leaders in the region to save and protect unborn children.
That’s how we created PRI’s Office for Ibero-America. And for me, these twenty years of work have been a response to my professional vocation and a blessing for which I never tire of giving thanks to God. I have sought the same challenge for many young people who have been part of the staff of this office or those whom we have served in these two decades. We need all of them to win the battle to build a Culture of Life!
My relationship with PRI began a few years earlier thanks to my great friend Dan Zeidler, who first introduced us.
In 2001, Steve asked me to complete PRI’s investigation of forced sterilizations in Peru. A group of Peruvian bishops and professionals had denounced those travesties in 1998, and I had worked with many of them. PRI had helped by sending a fieldwork team to gather evidence and testimonies. These efforts informed the response to the Tiahrt Amendment in the U.S. Congress in 1999, and later prohibited abortion organizations from receiving millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funding.
In 2004, already having caused several headaches for USAID officials and abortionists in Peru, Steve invited me to expand our work throughout the region. We first met at the World Congress of Families in Mexico, where we worked on our first mission together.
In Mexico City, we worked to arrange an opportunity for us to film an interview with Elena Zúñiga, president of the National Population Council of Mexico. Steve had to ask the right questions so that she would admit to applying what the Tiahrt Amendment prohibited, such as working with quotas for contraceptive methods involving coercion. We knew that both getting the appointment and conducting the filmed interview were very difficult because Zúñiga’s long history of supporting abortion was well-known. But each of us worked hard to achieve that goal.
The interview was a success: Zúñiga was exposed. And so began a deep bond of friendship and our work for the cause of life. In addition to being social anthropologists, Steve and I share the determined spirit needed to confront the abortion and birth-control industry.
Also, in these early years, Providence gifted me with the friendship of Carlos and Mónica Beltramo, who were our accomplices and advisors in these initial skirmishes. And with them, we also dreamed together of what would come next.
In working with Dr. Carlos Beltramo, currently director of the PRI Office for Europe, we realized that the best way to contribute to the international pro-life movement was through the development of political tools. Because the most critical moment in saving children’s lives comes when a politician or a judge decides to authorize a law in favor of abortion. Pro-lifers in Hispano-America were beginning to realize that the political battle was key, and PRI played an important part in awakening their pro-life consciousness.
The first great tool we created was the Political Scenario Analysis. This approach helps us visualize a situation where a crucial decision for our interests would be made and allowed us to go from being mere spectators to being key actors in what happens in the community, city, country, or world. We first applied it in key scenarios in Peru, then in other countries, as well as at events at the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Soon, our results produced requests for courses in our strategies.
To date, we have taught more than 200 courses in 18 countries, training over 3,500 activists.
In 2010, the Pontifical Council for the Family asked us to publish our teachings, so in 2012, “Scenario Analysis with a Chess Player’s Mindset” appeared. As we applied our methods, we learned from our experiences and put political tools into action in 2017, when we created the RELEASE Division (the acronym summarizes our work: REsearch, LEAdership, Strategy and Execution). On our website, we explain these tools.
In 2018, at the VII International Pro-Life Congress, I was awarded the Humanity Prize, in recognition of the contribution that PRI and each of my colleagues had made since 2004. In the same year, we published our second book, co-authored with Carlos Beltramo, entitled “Don’t Let Them Decide For You. Doing Politics in the Post-Truth Era.”
In May 2020, just as the COVID pandemic was beginning, we produced Pandemonium, a free e-book with articles by prestigious intellectuals (including Steven Mosher, Javier Milei, and Agustín Laje). Our goal was to dismantle the globalist narrative that sought to impose itself hegemonically. Abortionists sought to hide their objectives in a broader, more appealing narrative, and we were there to expose them.
The success of the book was immediate and overwhelming.We produced two more Pandemonium volumes in October 2020 and May 2021, as well as an English edition of the first volume.
Altogether, Pandemonium has over 500,000 downloads. The presentation videos for each book have over a million views. Pandemonium was cited in several scientific studies. Even a leftist Argentine researcher warned his comrades that, “Sometimes we make the mistake of believing that the right does not write and does not have intellectuals, and compilations like this tell us otherwise.”
Pandemonium was also the beginning of us working closely with the most influential conservative agenda-setters in the Spanish-speaking world. We have collaborated with Agustín Laje, Miklos Lukacs, Nicolás Márquez, and Pablo Muñoz in promoting their books, participating in their video conferences, and attending in-person events reaching thousands of young people.
And how can we not remember Sergio Burga on this 20th anniversary! In 15 years with us at PRI, Sergio became a vital international leader and strategist, an inspiring example both in his work and in his personal life. From our human calculations, he had excellent professional prospects, but God found his earthly mission to be fulfilled, so on November 30, 2022, at the age of 41, He took Sergio to his eternal reward.
Having Sergio as a model, other young people are taking up that baton: Jeng Cheng Nakazaki in digital and political communication, and María José Corzo and Cristina Cevallos, both lawyers specializing in parliamentary law. All of this has led our office to become a political, legal, and communication source in the region.
Organizations aligned with the best practices now want to work with us. We work with CitizenGO – HazteOir, a citizen platform that brings together over 18 million members in 11 languages and more than 50 countries. They include the board of the International Right to Life Federation and the Expert Committee of the Political Network for Values, collaborating with politicians like José Antonio Kast, former presidential candidate in Chile, and Rafael López Aliaga, Mayor of Lima.
But perhaps the greatest recognition comes from our adversaries. Media attacks and even lawsuits have not been lacking.
Last year, after more than 8 years of legal proceedings, we won a lawsuit filed against us by the NGO PROMSEX, an ally of Planned Parenthood in Peru. We were delighted that they spent a lot of money hiring a very expensive law firm, all in vain.
At the PRI Office for Ibero-America, we live with joy the blessedness of persecution. I thank Steve, my PRI colleagues, our donors, and all those who make it possible for us to continue in this fight. We ask God to accompany us and allow us to continue saving unborn children.
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Carlos Polo is Director of the Iberoamerican Office of the Population Research Institute.
